


How to Be Your Own Worst Enemy (Or Maybe Your Best Friend)

by Mireille



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-03
Updated: 2006-04-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 10:52:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13569060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: Sometimes, Xander could really annoy himself.An alternate version of "The Replacement."





	How to Be Your Own Worst Enemy (Or Maybe Your Best Friend)

"You've got to be kidding," Xander said. "'Let the spell be ended'? That's not gonna work." He opened his eyes, seeing himself looking right back at him. "Why didn't it work?" he demanded, looking over at Willow pleadingly. "Oh, God, am I going to be stuck like this forever? And you know when I said 'kill us both,' that was a _Star Trek_ joke and I didn't mean it, right?" He couldn't stay like this forever. Anya liked the other him better. His boss liked the other him better. _Everybody_ liked the other him better. The only reason they'd even keep him around was because if something happened to him, it happened to the other one. 

"Of course you're not going to be stuck like this," Willow said. "I just need to do a little research, that's all." 

"Why do you have to put them back at all?" Anya asked, and Xander flinched. She could have at least waited a couple of hours before telling him she only liked the other him. Everyone else was giving Anya looks that ranged from "disturbed, but kind of amused" from Buffy to Giles' "really, just disturbed." 

"Because that's the way they're supposed to be?" Willow said. "And don't worry, Xander, I'll get you back together. Giles, I'm going to need to borrow some books, okay?"

Giles looked up from where he'd been cleaning his glasses and probably trying to ignore Anya. "Yes, of course," he said. "If you don't see what you need here--"

"Actually, I'm pretty sure one of them is at your place," she said. "I remember scanning it. I'll look for the rest here, and then stop by on my way back to the dorm? I've got an eight o'clock class, but hopefully by then I'll have figured out what I did wrong." 

"So they're going to be like this all night?" Anya said, looking at him and the other Xander. Xander gulped, and when he looked over at the other him, he didn't look all that much more thrilled with the idea. It had been a long day, and right now, all he wanted to do was take a shower and get some sleep. He wondered if the other one felt the same way, or whether his problem was just that Anya was planning to invite _him_ along. Not that he felt all that great about sharing his girlfriend with another guy, even if the other guy was him. 

"They're not in any real danger, are they?" Riley said, interrupting his train of thought, and Xander looked over at him suspiciously. He wasn't going to forget that lock-them-up-and-run-tests suggestion any time soon. 

"No," Giles said. "I'm not certain what long-term effects there might be, but they're certainly safe until morning."

"Except that if something happens to one of them, the other one's dead," Buffy pointed out. 

"Yeah," the other Xander said, "but if something happened to me when there was only one of me, I was just as dead." 

Willow sighed. "If you're going to say that this can wait until we've all had a good night's sleep--"

"--Or sex," Anya chimed in. 

Willow ignored her and went on. "--forget it. I obviously screwed up the spell to reunite them, and I'm going to fix it." Then, doubtfully, she added, "Unless Xander doesn't want me to do it yet."

"Oh, we want you to," both of them said at once. 

"Sorry, Ahn," the other him added, "but I'd really be happier back to normal."

"So why don't we round up the books Willow needs from here and then hit the books at Giles' place?" Riley suggested. "If we're all looking, we ought to find a solution a little faster."

Giles nodded. "If Willow's determined to do this tonight, then the more people looking, the better, I'd say." 

No matter how tired he was, Xander had to admit that he wanted to get back to normal. That hadn't been all that good, but it was better than this. Considering that the cool him had got him a better place to live and a promotion, getting back to normal could actually be a huge improvement. "Then I guess it's a good thing that there's two of me," he said, smiling weakly. 

The other him smiled back. Xander wondered whether he was really not bothered by any of this, or whether he was just better at pretending not to be, along with everything else he was better at. 

 

***

"Maybe you should just, um, sit over here," Willow suggested, patting the couch next to her, after the third time he'd nearly knocked over something irreplaceable. Giles had stopped researching and had started just hovering, trying to keep him from damaging anything, and Xander couldn't really blame him. He wasn't trying to screw up; it was just happening with amazing frequency. 

He sat down next to her, pretending not to notice that Anya and the other him were sitting together, other-Xander helping her to adjust her sling so it was more comfortable. 

Anya was _his_ girlfriend--their girlfriend? Either way, he ought to be the one doing that. Except that he'd probably manage to pull her arm off, the way things were going for him tonight. 

And it looked like he was going to stuck being the inferior Xander for a while, because Willow had reached the bottom of her pile of books, Giles was frowning and rubbing his eyes, and Buffy was about half asleep. "We should probably call it a night," he said. 

"We're going to find the answer, Xander," Willow insisted, and he squeezed her shoulders carefully. 

"Yeah, I know, Will," he said. "Just not tonight." He stood up, stretching and then frowning when the other Xander caught his eye. "What?"

"I'm thinking maybe only one of us should go back to the basement tonight," he said. "Do we really want Mom to come down to put something in the dryer and see both of us?"

He did have a point. "I'm not sleeping in the dump again," he said, as firmly as he could. 

"I was thinking one of us could go home and start packing, and the other could...." The other Xander shrugged. "Sleep at the new place?"

"Yeah, right. On the floor, while you get my bed--"

"Our bed." 

"And my girlfriend?" 

"Our girlfriend."

"Stop correcting me, okay?" 

The other Xander gave him a sheepish grin. "Yeah, okay. You could go home and start packing," he suggested. 

"Nah. I'll break all our stuff. Am I really this big of a klutz?"

"Sometimes," the other him admitted. "Not usually, but--"

"But I get it, I'm the lame half. Sure you don't want me to have a keeper until we get changed back?" 

"Actually," Buffy began, and Xander looked up, horrified. "Buffy? I was joking there." 

"She's kind of right," the other him admitted, and then, before Xander could argue, turned to Giles. "You said we weren't in any danger, but is that 'the books say you're okay,' or 'the books don't say you're _not_ okay'? There's a difference." 

"There's nothing about any dangerous effects of the _ferula gemina_ ," Giles said, "except the obvious danger to the, ah...."

"Stupid half," Xander volunteered. 

Before anyone could agree with him--thank God--his other half said, "That means you don't know for sure that we'll be fine. So maybe we shouldn't be alone?" 

"So one of us goes home with Anya," Xander said, "and now I have to find someone to spend the night with me in the dump?" He wasn't even going to pretend to believe that he was the one who got to spend the night with Anya. He wasn't the half that got the luck. 

"You don't have to stay in the dump," Willow insisted. 

"So, what, you're going to let me sleep on your floor? Not a lot better."

"He could stay here, couldn't he?" Willow suggested. "He can't really stay with me or Buffy, and the other Xander should probably be with Anya since her arm's hurt and she can't, you know...."

"Rescue me," Xander muttered dejectedly. This being-two-people thing had been kind of cool, for about half an hour. It was probably still cool, for the other him, but by now, it was getting annoying. 

"What about Riley?" Giles suggested, and Xander was just about to bring up the running-experiments stuff--not that Riley wasn't a great guy, but he wasn't taking chances--when Buffy shook her head rapidly. 

"Riley has... that thing he has to do. He's not going to be home, and it's not the kind of thing that Xander can--"

"She means she doesn't want Xander around when she and Riley have sex," Anya finished for her. 

Giles grimaced. "Yes, thank you, Anya; none of us would have been able to work that out for ourselves." 

"So he can stay with you?" Buffy said, giving Giles a bright smile.

Xander didn't need a keeper. He could stay in the basement with the other one of him--they could be careful, and there was a good chance that if his mom did see both of them, she'd think she was just seeing things. Or if that wouldn't work, then he'd go and stay at the new apartment. He could sleep on the floor for the time being. 

He was about to say so when Giles sighed. "I suppose so. He can sleep down here." 

The other Xander was him. He _had_ to know exactly why Xander didn't want to stay here while he was pathetic and likely to be even more stupid than usual. But even when Xander turned around to give the other him a look that he had to know meant, "Figure out a way to get us out of this," the other Xander just nodded. "I think that's probably a good idea." 

He'd always thought "being your own worst enemy" was just an expression, but apparently the other him hadn't got that memo. 

 

***

"What did you say to her?" 

Xander didn't have to wonder who the voice on the other end of the line belonged to. First of all, just about anyone else calling here--not that anyone did; Buffy and Willow mostly just came by unannounced--would have asked for Giles. And probably been confused by Xander's answering the phone, so maybe he shouldn't keep doing that. 

Secondly, it wasn't like he wasn't going to recognize his own voice, even if it did sound weird, like hearing himself on tape. 

He didn't have to ask what the other Xander was talking about, either; that was one of the few advantages to having another of him walking around. Even though they'd been separate for a week now, they still thought the same way. "I don't know," he admitted. 

"How can you not know? Anya's furious with you! Us," the other Xander corrected, and then, after a faint sound that might have been a door slamming, he changed it to, "Me. What did you say?"

"A lot of stuff!" Anya had been upset about the whole "being mortal" thing, and he'd been trying to make her feel better about it. He hadn't done a very good job; one of the things that this half of him had gotten was the tendency to say the exact wrong thing at the exact wrong time--not to mention an inability to shut up and quit while he was ahead. Anya had stormed out, and while Xander had wanted to go after her, he'd known there wasn't anything he could do. He'd decided to let the other Xander calm her down; he was good at that. "Whatever I said," he added, "I didn't mean to upset her. It just happened."

It had been "just happening" a lot lately; he'd started thinking he ought to just avoid Anya until all this was over. Everybody else seemed to be able to shrug off the dumb things he said, but they bothered Anya. The other him had pointed out that she was having a rough time lately; it was hard realizing that you were mortal after a thousand years as a demon. 

He knew that. And he was sympathetic, honestly. He just couldn't keep himself from saying dumb stuff. 

"Yeah, well, she's blaming both of us," the other Xander said. 

Xander sighed. "I'm sorry. Look, Willow and Giles will find the spell to put us back together soon, and then I'll be better at... well... everything." Then, doubtfully, he said, "I guess you're not really looking forward to it, though. I mean, you'll be worse at everything."

He didn't care, at this point, whether the other Xander liked the idea or not, just as long as Willow turned them back to normal. Saying insensitive stuff to Anya was bad enough--it was made a little better, in fact, by Anya coming over sometimes because, she said, he was "sweet" and the other him wasn't. He wasn't sure what she meant, exactly, but he figured maybe "clumsy, pathetic, and useless" had some kind of charm. 

But he wanted his other half back. The half that was good at important stuff like keeping his mouth shut, and repressing things, and remembering that he was incredibly heterosexual and not at all likely to say or do anything that might give anyone, particularly Giles, any suspicion to the contrary. Because this half, honestly, sucked at all of that. 

He was a little bit reassured when the other Xander said, "I'm you, remember? You won't be better. I won't be worse. We'll just be back to normal. And Anya will probably forgive us both once that happens." 

"Speaking of places to live," Xander said, and it wasn't a complete change of subject if he'd been thinking about it, not when he was talking to himself, "don't think I've forgiven you for this."

"What? Giles' couch isn't that bad to sleep on. I took a couple of naps there last year, remember?" 

"I'm not talking about the couch, and you know it." 

"Maybe I don't. Maybe you're the only one of us who got that particular piece of information," the other him said, and that was when Xander knew that no, his other half knew damn well what his problem was. 

He just didn't care. "So if it doesn't bother you, maybe you ought to come and hang out with Giles all the time." Xander was pretty sure the other half of him wouldn't have to worry about blurting out something embarrassing. He was way too suave for that, not that Xander was bitter about being the dorky half. 

The other Xander laughed. "This is going to work out a lot better. Trust me." 

Okay, maybe he was a little bitter. 

 

***

Only one of them could go to work on any given day, of course, and they'd decided pretty quickly that it would probably be smart to leave the heavy machinery to the _other_ Xander. That left him with not a whole lot to do. He went to the magic shop most days, but Giles usually sent him home after a couple of hours, saying that he wanted to have some unbroken inventory left by the time his grand opening rolled around. 

It wasn't so much that Xander was a klutz as it was that he had really, really rotten luck. The tape on a box he was carrying would decide to come unstuck, so the bottom dropped out; he'd forget to check to make sure that a newly-repaired shelf was stable before putting stuff on it. It was the kind of thing that could happen to anyone. It just happened to him nearly all the time, these days. 

So Xander got a lot of alone-time, just him and Giles' TV set, which didn't even get cable. 

Well, not always just him. Sometimes, it was him, and him, and the TV set, because the other Xander had started dropping by after work a lot of the time. 

He didn't mind. Willow had worried--and Riley had been really interested in the idea--that being separated for this long would be painful, or mentally stressful, but so far, it hadn't been. Still, he liked hanging out with the other him. At least he got all of Xander's jokes, even the ones that were totally dependent upon having seen the right episode of _Babylon 5_. 

Sometimes, though, he could be seriously annoying. The other him, he meant... no, maybe he did mean that he could be. It got seriously confusing trying to talk about yourself like you were another person. Anyway, the Xander sitting at the other end of the couch could be seriously annoying, and he was doing it right now. 

"You don't really hate this," he was saying, grinning at Xander. 

"Yes, I do. No, I don't," he admitted, because if he couldn't tell the truth to himself--actually, there were a lot of times when he couldn't tell the truth to himself, now that he thought about it. "Well, kind of. But it's sort of been...."

"...Nice?" the other Xander finished for him. "I liked--we liked--look, if I just say 'I,' will you believe that I'm talking about both of us?" When Xander nodded, he went on, "Last year, hanging out with Giles, that was pretty cool. When I wasn't going home and freaking out, I mean."

Xander nodded again. "Yeah, I know. But... you know this is a seriously bad idea." 

"No, I don't. When we get back to normal, we can blame anything weird we do on being split in two. How are they going to prove it?" 

"Giles will know."

"Is he going to say anything, though?"

He hadn't said anything about Xander remembering being a hyena, but this might be different. This actually involved Giles, although that might work in Xander's favor. He couldn't imagine Giles actually telling anyone that Xander had a crush on him. "What about Anya?"

The other him winced, but didn't give in. "That's the whole point. It isn't fair to Anya if we're always wondering whether we're doing the right thing. We need to figure it out. And right now, when there's technically one more of us than Anya needs, and she doesn't like either of us all that much--"

"--wait, what?"

He shrugged. Xander wondered if his miserable shrugs had always looked quite that miserable, or if some of his patheticness was rubbing off on his other half. "You know that. You upset her, and I...." He shook his head. "I don't know exactly what I do, but she said I'm a better boyfriend when I'm just one person, and I should leave her alone until then."

"And you're just now telling me that?" 

"It'll be okay," the other Xander promised him. "We can work everything out with her when we're back to normal." After a pause, he added, "If we decide we want to. And that's what you're supposed to be figuring out." 

Xander buried his head in his hands, mumbling, "This isn't fair. Why do you expect me to be the guinea pig?" 

"It's both of us," he argued. "When we're back to normal, it won't matter which of us did it."

"Then you go ahead. Be my guest. It can be your fault Giles hates me."

"If that's what it takes, then I guess I'm going to have to." He didn't like the look on the other Xander's face. It was awfully close to Willow's resolve face. He didn't _have_ a resolve face, and it was kind of worrying that the other him did. Maybe that half had all the resolve. 

"You really don't. I'm fine the way things are." He'd stop doubting himself eventually. Stop questioning whether Anya, as great as she was, was really what he wanted. If he ignored things long enough, eventually they _would_ go away, or at least get so deeply buried that he wouldn't have to worry about them any more. 

"No, I'm not," the other Xander argued. "What am I going to do? Repress things for the next twenty years, until eventually I come home to Anya and say, 'Hey, honey, did I ever tell you that I'm gay?'"

"That's not going to happen!" Xander interrupted. 

"Yeah. Of course it's not. Then why am I so worried about it?" 

"Worried about what?" another voice said, and Xander's heart sank. Somehow, he'd completely failed to hear the door opening and closing. He bet the other him hadn't missed it. He'd probably been counting on it. He'd been set up. By himself, which was possibly the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to him.

"Uh, nothing," he said, not turning around to look at Giles. "Just, um. Kind of worried about what happens if Willow doesn't get me put back together soon."

The other him frowned. "Do I always suck that much at lying?" 

"I'm not lying!" He _was_ worried. He'd apparently managed to screw things up pretty well with Anya, and it was only a little comforting to know that the cooler version of him was just as responsible for that as he was. 

What if it turned out that _none_ of his friends liked either half of him all that much? Neither one of them was really a whole person; the longer they were separated, the more obvious that was going to be, right? 

He was worried about that. It wasn't what he'd been talking about, true, but he wasn't lying. Not technically. 

Giles came around the end of the couch, frowning slightly. "I can't find any records of any ill effects of the _ferula gemina_ , but it's likely no one has ever been separated for as long as you two have without being reunited or, er, eliminated."

"I'm okay," the other him said. "Just trying to psych myself--that self over there, I mean--up into doing something." 

Giles gave him a bewildered look. "I thought one Xander could be confusing," he said. 

"It's not going all that well," the other Xander confessed. "I shouldn't be all that surprised; I've been chickening out of doing something like this since high school."

Xander looked over at him, shaking his head. "Last year was not high school."

"One word: Jesse." 

Xander winced. Okay, new rule: never, ever talk to himself. Apparently, it'd keep coming back to bite him in new and unexpected ways. 

"Am I supposed to have any idea what either of you is talking about?" Giles said, going over to his desk and starting to sort through the mail. 

The other Xander turned around to look at him, giving him a slight smile. "Probably not," he said. "I --both of me--we've just been trying to figure some stuff out, and we might need your help."

Okay, Xander thought, when your dumb half can spot the lameness and cheesiness in what you're saying, it might be time to worry. 

Except that he was apparently about to get the world-shattering experience of feeling smarter than Giles, because Giles was nodding and saying, "That's what I've been trying to do," and glancing toward the bookshelf like he was about to get up and start researching. 

Now the other him grinned. "Not that kind of help. There's just some stuff I've been thinking about for a while, and--well, having two brains has given me some extra time to think, so lately I've been thinking about it a lot." 

Xander snorted. Even suave-him wasn't all _that_ suave, apparently. 

"I'm afraid I'm not quite following you," Giles said. 

"That'd be because he's not making any sense," Xander muttered, but the other him seemed completely unfazed. 

"Yeah, I know. Sorry about that. It's just not the easiest thing to say," he said, taking a deep breath. Xander was pretty sure that even the smarter half of him wouldn't be able to fake being nervous so well. 

He also knew he wasn't very likely to be able to stop this train before it went right off the tracks into Big Gay Doom. He curled up a little more on the couch, deciding to close his eyes and just not look. 

Unfortunately, short of sticking his fingers in his ears and singing, "La la la, I can't hear you," he couldn't actually close his ears, and the other him had gone on talking. 

"Maybe it's because I'm split in half now, and, I don't know. I guess the part of me that was too freaked out to say anything is in the other half?"

Xander covered his face with his hands, though he got a glimpse through his fingers of Giles' bewildered expression.

"I'm...ah...I'm not entirely certain I know what you're talking about," Giles said. 

Xander felt the couch shift when the other him got up from it, and then there were a few horribly long seconds of silence. He was just about to uncover his eyes to find out what the hell was going on when the other him spoke again. 

"That make it any clearer?"

Giles cleared his throat, and Xander decided that he didn't want to know what the hell was going on. "Yes, I...er...I believe it did."

"Good." Silence again, and Xander finally dared to lower his hands, to face whatever doom was waiting for him. The other him was crouched down beside Giles' chair, leaning in awkwardly--well, for him it would have been awkward; this other Xander didn't seem to be having that much trouble--and kissing Giles. 

It was just plain stupid to be jealous of yourself, but he couldn't help it. Sure, technically, that was him over there, that was his hand clutching at Giles' shirt for balance, that was his back Giles' hand was hovering over, making quick abortive movements toward him but never quite letting himself touch. Technically. In reality, though, he was sitting over here on the couch, by himself, and that was the other him. And even if Giles liked this now--and it looked like he did, because he wasn't making any attempt to stop it--that didn't mean he liked _this_ half of Xander, the half with hair that needed to be combed and a previously-unnoticed ketchup stain on his shirt. 

Definitely jealous. Also definitely weirded out, because he wasn't sure if it was freaky or not that watching himself kiss Giles was hot. On the one hand, it was himself; on the other hand, it wasn't him over there doing it. On the third hand--and hey, he guessed he did, for once, really have three hands. 

He'd forgotten his third point, so Xander got up then, going over to Giles and the other him and giving them both a hopeful grin.

"This is going to be a great deal easier if I--" Giles began, finishing his sentence by getting to his feet. 

And then Xander didn't have to feel jealous any more, because Giles' arms were around him and Giles was kissing _him_ this time, one of Giles' hands sliding up his spine and finally resting in the hair at the back of his neck, and he hadn't realized from watching Giles kiss the other him that it would be like this: clumsy and sweet and soft and oh, God, had he really had to wonder if he wanted this? 

Xander laughed, and Giles let go of him, stepping back and looking at him curiously. He looked over at the other Xander, shaking his head. "We are _so_ not straight," he said, and then laughed harder when he realized his other half had just said the exact same thing. 

"Think you can take it from here?" the other Xander said, once they both stopped laughing. "One of us ought to go back to the apartment and finish unpacking." 

Xander didn't feel entirely confident that this was going to be a good idea, but he nodded anyway. Then the other Xander gave Giles a quick kiss and him a thumbs-up before leaving the apartment, and Xander felt even less confident. 

"You do know," he said finally, sitting back down, "that this isn't just finding out--I mean, yeah, I wanted to know if I was--but that's not just what this is." Then it was like he couldn't stop talking, though he was pretty sure Giles wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of the words that spilled out. They were just a tangle of doubts and fears and crushes and confusion, and all the times in the past year or so that he'd looked at Giles and wondered whether he was going insane. They barely made sense to Xander, and he'd been there.

Giles might not have been able to understand what he was talking about, but he let Xander talk, and after a few minutes, he sat down next to Xander on the couch. Xander stayed where he was, but he reached over and took Giles' hand, relieved when Giles didn't pull away. 

He didn't even pull away when Xander stopped talking, although he did sigh and say, quietly, "It's not as simple as that, though." 

Xander had been trying not to think about that. "You mean Anya."

"She may be having some difficulty coping with you in your current condition, but...."

"Yeah," Xander agreed, miserably. That wasn't going to be a fun conversation. How was he supposed to tell a girl who loved him that he loved her too, just not quite the right way? It was going to hurt her, and she didn't deserve that. But she didn't deserve a boyfriend who was at least mostly gay, and who'd rather be with somebody else. 

That effectively killed the conversation; the silence stretched on until Xander decided he'd probably be better off helping the other him at the new apartment. 

He thought, for a minute, that Giles was going to stop him, but he was wrong. As usual.

 

***

It took a while to get everything straightened out in his brain; having double memories for a week or so was confusing for a while, until he got used to it. He was still kind of annoyed with himself for that brilliant plan--"throw Giles at me until I crack" might have worked, but it still wasn't all that fair--but he decided he either had to get over it or check into the funny farm. 

After that, things got back to normal pretty quickly, except for the number of batches of cookies Willow baked him as an apology for how long it took her to figure out how to fix things. 

He told her every time she apologized that there was no possible dimension in which this was _her_ fault, but he ate the cookies anyway, and gave the leftovers away to the neighbors who dropped in to meet the new guy in the building. 

Finally, he decided that he was as back to normal as he was ever going to be, and he couldn't put off going to talk to Anya. That had gone absolutely _not_ like he'd expected. Anya had apparently spent the past few days devouring pop psychology books, and had greeted him with an announcement that she cared for him very much, but that she thought that it was important for her to focus on herself for the time being. 

He'd nearly cracked up at that; all that stress, for nothing. But then, when he'd stopped trying to stifle his laughter, he'd told Anya anyway--about the non-straightness, though not about Giles. After that, he'd told Willow, and then Buffy, and he'd run out of people to tell and it was time he did something about it. 

Which explained why Xander was standing here, on Giles' doorstep, trying to convince himself that he was still the guy who could do this, who could make the first move instead of waiting for stuff to happen to him. 

Then Giles answered the door, and that was all the convincing Xander needed.

**Author's Note:**

> [me on tumblr](https://mireille719.tumblr.com)


End file.
